Inaugurating contentious ancient Jerusalem road, Rubio calls it an ‘humbling experience’

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio inaugurates a newly excavated ancient road at the City of David National Park near Jerusalem’s Old City, in a private event also attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, the City of David Foundation says in a statement.

In a brief clip shared by the organization from the event – from which local and international media are barred – Rubio says: “To stand here today on the very road where, 2,000 years ago, so many from everywhere ventured to fulfill that desire to be closer to the Creator is a humbling and honoring experience.”

Netanyahu adds: “2,000 years after the destruction of the Second Temple, we are rediscovering our past and building our future — based on the Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago.”

He appears to hit back at past remarks by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying: “This is our city, Mr. Erdoğan. It’s not your city. It’s our city. It will always be our city. It will not be divided again.”

“That’s why I so much appreciate the leadership of [US] President [Donald] Trump in this area as well,” he goes on. He noted that when the US president declared Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in his first term — “something that should have been acknowledged by every leader in the world” — and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, Netanyahu told him that any fallout “will be primarily directed at us, and we are definitely ready. So he just did it.'”

“And I welcome today [Rubio], who understands that this is the foundation of our common Judeo-Christian heritage… This is our city. It is forever our city. It will never be divided again,” he declares.

Huckabee also hails Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided” capital, saying: “The Jewish people never forgot that this was their land, their home, their undivided, indisputable, indigenous capital from eternity.”

The event marked the opening of a newly completed excavation of the “Pilgrim’s Road,” which was discovered at the base of the City of David, an archaeological site just south of the Old City, in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, believed to have been used during the Second Temple period (516 BCE–70 CE) by Jewish pilgrims making their way to the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, which is also sacred to Muslims as the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Despite criticism that the move would amount to US recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the contested area, Rubio dismissed what he described as “politics” around the event ahead of his visit, telling reporters that the City of David is “one of the most important archaeological sites in the world” and “important” to “multiple faiths.”